Photos

Design

The Kyushu Q1W Tokai was designed as a dedicated land based anti-submarine aircraft. The Q1W was designed to meet a 1942 Japanese Navy Air Force 17-Shirequirement for over water operation and use dive bombing to deliver its attacks.

Nojiri was the designer of the Q1W. He made the cockpit with a similar layout as the German Ju 88.

The overall construction was metal.

Radar

Early on the Q1W Tokai was fitted with a poor radar that was supplemented by a magnetic anomaly detector.

It was intended to fit the Q1W with better radar but it had development problems.

Since the radar was almost useless the Q1W crews relied on visual observation to find submarines.